Why won't my printer work?

[Lestat]

I won't say I'm the most incompetent person when it comes to computers, but if the most incompetent person were to die...

I've got a HP Deskjet 648C. It's plugged in. It has 2 usb plugs which are both plugged into the CPU USB ports.

I go to print a document and... Nothing. I look and see the print job and it's there in queu waiting to be printed. I hit restart and nothing. It says error-printing under status.

I go to "control panel" and look at my printers. There it is with a checkmark next to it. So I think it's installed.

Any idea why I can't get it to print? Notepad doesn't print either. I tried to run through the troubleshooting help guide, but got stuck when it asked me to print from a command prompt. It only shows how to print from a LPT port, not a USB port. So I don't know the command to print from a USB port. Aaaarrrgghh! I just want to print 1 silly (but important), document! Why is this so hard? I'd appreciate any help.